[Sca-Cooks] Verjus question

[Stefan li Rous]

Pixel, Goddess and Queen wrote:

> Has anybody made verjus at home? I bought grapes the other day and wow
> they're sour, which makes them not nice for eating but maybe they'd  
> make
> good verjus. Or am I off-base here?

Unfortunately, I don't think these is a first-hand how-I-made  
verjuice story in this file, but it might be of use because of the  
other comments in here.
verjuice-msg     (122K)  5/13/06    Medieval verjuice. Modern  
substitutions.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/verjuice-msg.html

Selene then responded with:
<<< If you want to keep them for any length of time, I suggest  
boiling the
juice and using standard canning procedures.  Or, of course, freezing.
Otherwise, it will ferment like any other grape juice and the wine may
be just a bit hard to drink. >>>

I thought period verjuice was unfermented or didn't ferment. If they  
didn't have a problem with the juice fermenting, why would Margaret?  
Because you fear Margaret's grapes are more ripe? Or a different  
type? Or something else? Was medieval verjuice used so quickly that  
it didn't have time to ferment?

I can see, at least for the first experiment, using freezing or  
canning to simply help make sure there is no contamination by the  
wrong beasties though. Or perhaps preserving one half of the batch  
and not using any preservation techniques on the other half, just to  
see if it will ferment or spoil.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****